"Czarny" vs. "Czerny", vs. "Charni" vs. "Cherni", etc.

What are the differences, or are they just variant spellings of the same Polish word in the end?

e.g., "Czarniecki" vs. "Czerniecki" (although it was originally "Chernetski", "Chernetzky", "Zernetzky", etc. in our case. Still, we changed it to "Czerniecki" when we Polonized it, and then changed the "e" to an "a" when we tried to pose as Poles).

Czerny is a Polish surname which along with it's variants, is also common in other Slavic languages. As with Czarny, it means black.Chani and Cherni appear to me to be attempts at spelling Czarny and Czerny to someone unfamiliar with Polish/Slavic languages.Names were commonly butchered when Polish immigrants arrived in the US as I'm sure you know.

Thank you so much for your answer. By the way, as I said, our case was that it was originally "Chernetski", "Chernetzky", "Zernetzky", etc.. Still, we changed it to "Czerniecki" when we Polonized it, and then changed the "e" to an "a" when we tried to pose as Poles. Also, as Dr. Dara Horn notes, immigrants generated their own name identifications:

True, European Jewish immigrants did have to render their names into Latin or Cyrillic letters..., and yes, passports were sometimes forged-but those...changes would have been generated by the immigrants themselves. It is also true that many immigrants chose new names for themselves..., whether for expediency or to avoid discrimination.

"Czerny" as in the once famous composer of piano exercises Karl Czerny, known to untold generations of music students, is listed in Groves' Dictionary of Music as an Austrian pianist and teacher of Hungarian extraction:-)

Possibly, although there has never been reason so assert that Karl Czerny was Jewish:-)

Just consulted Groves' Dictionary on line and sure enough, I must have misread the site (either that or it was previously in error, both more than likely), but it clearly states "Austrian pianist and musician of Czech origin."

Unless the family name might have been changed to "Czerny" from something else, the family name "Czerny" itself, is NOT Jewish:-) "CzernOWITZ" for instance, might well indeed be of Jewish lineage, though once more, even "-OWITZ" is not always an indication of Jewish origin. To be sure, "-WITZ" is in fact often of German/Prussian origin!

Czerny means black in other Slavic languages including Czech, although the spelling differs. I am guessing that at some point the name was incorporated into Polish language, but as Ironside pointed out, Czarny is Polish for black.

I know that; and actually, on another note, my "Daniłowicz" and "Andrulewicz" ancestors were Jewish (Actually, as I am related to Kirk Douglas :-(. I feel bad that another side of that family wreaked havoc on Natalie Wood and Jean Spangler.)